nixtress's Diaryland Diary

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I've hit the limit today

I'm so fried.
After work today, I ran the myriad errands I had to run, made sure to get my sister home and picked up Ave's mom.
I came home to find a puddle of blood, the size of my palm. It was bright red and fairly fresh and sitting near it was my cat, Freya. To say I freaked out is putting it way too simply.
Let me preface the freak out by saying that she's been even more attached than normal lately, wanting to be in my lap or on my chest each and every time I barely settle on the edge of a chair or couch. Other than that, she's acted pretty normally and I just figured it was her skin-itch-bump thing occurring again.
Freya sat there, hunched over and breathing in this really labored way.
I snagged the phone and proceeded to call our vet, first. No answer and so I left a message on their home phone (always a good idea because they do call back). Then I called every other vet in the phone book, trying to find someone who was actually IN and then trying to find out if they'd work with me on payments. Only one vet answered, the one I took Freya to initially (who told me she had a skin allergy) and in spite of the fact that I was completely crying and they agreed that a cat vomiting blood wasn't a good thing, refused to take anything less than complete payment at time of service.
I was steamed. I was freaking out. I was bawling like a small kid because for all intents and purposes, as I've described before, my animals are as much my children as the one's I birthed. My poor cat just sat, hunched over and breathing in a really labored manner, every now and again sounding like she was horking up a hairball. Eventually she calmed and I calmed and Ave's mom brought her stethoscope up to listen to her lungs and belly for me. Freya's eyes were still bright and with it and she sounded clear in belly and lungs (good because that shows no blockage or pneumonia or anything).
Our normal vet still has yet to call me back. I'm going to take my kitty in to the clinic in the morning, during their walk-in hours. She's resting comfortably at this point, has stopped breathing in that tortured, quick way and isn't horking anymore. She even ate a little, completely at her own behest. Poor baby.
I'm exhausted. Besides the emotional upheaval, I accomplished tons today in order to prepare for our trip tomorrow (assuming nothing is seriously wrong with my cat---at which point I'll have to board her at the vet because I'll be damned if she's going to die or I'm going to come home to find her that way!!!) and finished all my normal things too.
Grams has misplaced her teeth. Or I should say, the nursing home has. I'm thinking there's some old geezer roaming 'round the nursing home, chomping on Grams' teeth. Two of my aunts have called me to see if they ended up in the laundry and I can happily report that is NOT the case. That would eek me out. Yuck! I have a "thing" about false teeth. Remind me to tell you sometime.
Gramps was a grump today, refusing to even talk to me. Perhaps grump doesn't even quite cover it...
My brother B. was arrested on Wed. night after trashing the local Denny's while drunk. When the local police finally found him walking down the street and attempted to arrest him, he resisted and got into a scuffle with them. And when they finally got him in the back of the cruiser, he started headbutting the metal divider and had to be taken to the hospital for stitches (five!). While there, he threatened to kill one of the officers. He's been charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, assault and aggravated menacing. Those charges are on top of the DUI he just got a couple weeks ago and the open container charge he got in another county. He's self-destructing. I talked with him tonight on the phone and he completely shut me out. First time he's every done that and I think it broke my heart a little. My baby brother, the one I took to slumber parties, had in my senior pictures with me, protected as best I was able through everything we grew up in, has decided that it doesn't matter that I care or worry, that he doesn't "have time for it right now". He said to me, when I voiced a concern that I was going to open the paper and see a report of him, drunk and disorderly, shot to death or stabbed by someone bigger and badder, that it was probably going to happen and I should just prepare for it.
That completely stole my breath and my words. He doesn't want us to care, doesn't want the weight of that on him. He reminds me so fiercely of his own father, having died in much the same fashion only many years older (high speed chase with sheriff's deputies that ended in a wreck where he was ejected and broke every bone in his neck).
I don't know what to do with this. I don't know how to take it, how to handle it, how to process it. He's like my first son.
It's been a trying day. Tomorrow had better improve.
Happy weekend, all.
N.

9:56 p.m. - 2005-08-12

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